The Black Tulip

Winter

It snows that winter over İstanbul, and everyone in the harem agrees this is unusual weather for the city. Some acemis still work in the greenhouses or the sheltered winter garden courtyard, but nobody sets foot in the open beds of the regular harem garden, which sleeps under the snow until spring.

Leyla is secretly glad of it, since she knows how good the frozen earth will be for her tulips. She experiments with several bulbs, heating some, then moistening and combining them with others through a small, delicate kind of grafting and manipulation. Afterward, she tucks the bulbs away to rest, shut up in the cold and darkness until spring. She plants most of the bulbs the Mistress of the Flowers assigned her in a patch bordered with forget-me-nots and interspersed with narcissus and jonquil bulbs. Among them, she also hides three of her own bulbs, nervous the whole time that someone will notice and discover what she has done.

With the gardens inactive, Leyla finds herself with more free time than before, and she misses painting and sketching more than she expects to. During her lessons, she often catches herself making small ink sketches without even realizing it, since the beauty of the palace is a constant temptation. She knows it’s forbidden to draw anything resembling a person, an animal, or a plant, a rule the imam repeats often and one everyone in the palace is expected to abide by. Father and Cengiz used to discuss this frequently, too; Father always maintained that his gift was also the work of Allah, so it made sense to him to paint people, animals, or plants anyway. Leyla understands his reasoning, but she also recognizes that pursuing the kind of painting she loves most would only cause trouble here. So she keeps her mouth shut and never mentions painting again after that first day, when she brought it up to the chief housekeeper.

The İstanbul weather isn’t nearly as cold as where Leyla comes from. Even so, the acemis spend their days indoors trying to keep warm, resting their feet near coffee grounds warmed under the tables and passing the hours telling stories or reading fortunes. They eat well, with plenty of pilaf and lamb, and syrupy desserts are delivered to warm their feet and stomachs both. The padishah’s royal ladies have even fancier desserts sent to their private apartments, treats with playful names like Lady’s Fingers and Lips of the Beauty. But ever since Ceylan died after eating the haseki sultana’s halvah, Leyla has little interest in trying any of these dishes herself.

The royal ladies wear furs such as sable and ermine to stay warm, but the girls have nothing so grand. They sleep with scarves on their heads to stay warm, and the windows behind the lattices frost over on the inside. A cough or a bout of croup sends a girl straight to the infirmary, where it’s warmer and someone looks after her properly. The Mistress of Maladies, a kind woman originally from Macedonia, is fond of Leyla because Leyla occasionally brings her special herbs from the gardens. Her kindness is comforting, but it also makes Leyla feel very lonely, since it reminds her of how much she misses Mother.

Leyla’s education continues, and she progresses rapidly. In addition to learning court etiquette and how to speak properly, she memorizes and learns to recite poetry, and she learns more of the prayers in the Koran.

When the müezzin chants from his minaret five times a day, everyone in the palace stops what they’re doing. They pull out their prayer rugs and perform the namaz, bending and unbending as they face west toward the holy city of Mecca.

Every day, Leyla prays to Allah that Mother and her brothers are surviving the winter and that Father will return home, just as he did in her first dream here, and she prays, too, for little Lena. Even as she settles into her life in the harem and feels happy to be learning so many new things, she prays for a miracle, for her family to reunite someday, somehow. Although she knows it’s impossible, she still can’t stop herself from hoping.

There is something so mysterious and powerful about the müezzin’s song, “Allahüakbar,” God is great, that it always makes her feel peaceful and hopeful. As far as she knows, everyone in the whole city stops to pray five times a day, too, reminded of the same great spiritual power that unites everyone. There is only one Allah, no other God but God.